HomeTown Blues: 1, #1

By Kathleen Martin

This is the first in a series of stories from a small town in Upstate New York.   Cecilia Grimsby returns home after four years to make rediscover herself and the loves and friendships she left behind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Martin
• Release date: Apr 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224443178

Kathleen Martin

Kathleen Martin's first Novel "Penny Maybe" was published in Canada and Germany. She is also a Gemini-nominated writer for film and an award-winning playwright.  She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Book preview

For Hank Hughes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the guidance and support of Beth Schoenwald-Oberbeck and

Roy A. Phillips II

CHAPTER 1  

In June of 1989, I left my home in Atticusville, a small town in upstate New York, to stay with my Aunt Betty in Canada.  This was my first trip back home in five years.  I was called by a neighbor who found my father, Alex Grimsby, face down in the front yard next to his lawnmower. He  died of a sudden heart attack but I believe his heart was broken long before that.

I left work immediately and drove for six hours straight, stopping only at the US/Buffalo border to show customs my American passport. 

The lawnmower was still parked on a lane of cut grass when I arrived home.  My dad would never have left the lawnmower like that. A ball of tears was lodged in my throat so tightly I couldn't swallow.  I couldn't breathe.  I pounded the steering wheel until I hit the horn. The sharp blast broke the damn in my throat, and up came my rush of tears.  The force of my tears made my shoulders shake, made me feel like vomiting.  It was the first time I had cried since I was seven. I’m now twenty-four.  My name is Cecilia Grimsby. 

I got out of my car and walked towards the lawnmower.  I was still wearing my work power-suit and black pointy-toed spiked heels.  My heels sunk into the grass with every step, but, nevertheless, I continued to the mower, started it up, and finished cutting the lawn.  It was my little tribute to my dead father who, I’m sure, would never rest in peace if  his lawn was left half mowed. 

I’m grateful to my father for feeding and clothing me, but there was never a gesture of love between us, never a I love you or I’m so proud of you.  I have a lot of pent-up anger towards him for not making me feel worth anything.

Just as I was mowing the last corner of the yard, Messy Larkin, called to me from her back porch. She was the neighbor who called me about my dad.

Ce-Ce, Ce-Ce! You're home at last!

I could hear her calling over the noise of the mower but I pretended not to.  She was the only person who called me Ce-Ce. I just could not face her yet, with all her smothering love.  That must sound like a complete contradiction.  You’d think I would love for someone to smother me with love but isn’t love supposed to make you feel good, not smothered? 

My dad hired Messy to take care of me a few weeks after I was born because my mom left for New York for an undetermined time.  Messy was the only one to tell me about my mom.  They were close friends in high school. She said my mom never wanted to marry or have children. Her only real passion in life had always been art. In fact, she named me after Cecilia Beaux: an American society portraitist.

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After I finished mowing the lawn, I made my way up the front steps of my home. It’s an ordinary two-story wood-cladded house, typical of most homes in the neighborhood, painted white with black trim and a burlap welcome mat on the front porch.  The welcome mat now lay askew.  Just another little detail my father would never have allowed if he were still alive. I imagined that EMS workers must have pushed the mat aside, but when I unlocked the door, there was a small hill of mail underneath the mail slot, and the house had a musty not-lived-in smell to it. There was only one shriveled up apple in the fridge and one can of lima beans in the cupboard. Lima beans were my dad’s favorite – I hated them.  It looked like my father had not lived in the house for some time, but why?

When I was in Canada I had dutifully called my dad once a week at the bank where he worked because he insisted I call him there, rather than at home.  I thought that was strange, but I never asked why, and he never even hinted at not living in the house.  Of course, he had never shared anything remotely personal with me.  He never raised his voice or complained about anything.  His expression remained a blank slate, never colored with any emotion.  Perhaps my dad had his parents to thank for his passionless existence.  My fraternal grandparents were deceased, both died of sudden heart attacks when my dad was a teenager. It seems like sudden heart failure runs in the family.  Messy knew both of my grandparents.  She told me they did not believe in pampering children.  According to them if a baby is held too long, it will develop a dependency on being touched, which was, according to them, just not healthy.  How sick is that?

I tried hard to get close to my dad but whenever I tried to talk to him about some emotional problem I was having, he would listen, politely, smile his empty smile, and say, You’ll be fine. Now, go outside and play like a good girl.  He revised that when I became a teenager to go for a walk, that will clear your mind.  He was even more reluctant to talk about my mom and never clear on how she had died.  He just referred to it as an accident. 

In spite, of his attempt to remain cool and collected I could see the pain in his eyes whenever I asked about her, and rather than put him through that, I just stopped asking.  From then on I made up crazy stories about my mom’s passing from getting pneumonia to being struck by lightning.

I think my dad kept his distance from me because, according to Messy I looked so much like my mother, the woman who had broken what was left of his heart. 

Messy told me my mom painted every day before I was born on canvases she kept in the garage.  When I checked for these paintings I found them covered with a dirty tarp, which didn’t protect them because they were warped by moisture.  My dad had a habit of leaving the garage door opened when it rained, which was probably another way of him getting back at my mother leaving him.

Unlike Cecilia Beaux, my mom did not paint people. The paintings I uncovered were abstracts of grey circles and squares punctuated with bursts of color.  Messy said it was my mom’s  dream to visit all the great art museums in New York City, especially the Museum of Modern Art.

According to Messy, my mom lived out her dream of living in New York for only a few weeks.  She fell from a crowded subway station into the path of an oncoming train. It was never determined whether it was an accident or deliberate. 

When I was in Canada my Aunt Betty, my mom’s sister, told me my dad called her when he was notified of my mom’s death, because the authorities in New York had called him to claim the body.  He said that he could not go to New York because of work commitments.  He was a bank teller.  What work commitments would a bank teller have that would prevent him from claiming the body of his wife?  My Aunt Betty had to go and identify my mom’s body and make arrangements to have her shipped back to Atticusville.

Messy summed up the situation between my mom and dad like this All Dorothy Grimsby cared about were those weird paintings she did in her garage.  It’s amazing she even got married, especially to someone like Albert, who is the closest a human could get to being a robot.

One afternoon when Messy had a little more than her daily glass of sherry, she told me she wasn’t sure what her real name was and that her mother called her that because she made a mess of everything.  She never remembered her father being around and her mother warned her daily of never, ever getting close to any man because they’ll just leave you damaged and alone.

I think  Messy was an unwanted pregnancy and when her mother accused her of making a mess of everything she meant Messy’s birth ended her mother’s relationship with her father. No wonder Messy is so fucked up, but then so am I.  

For as long as I can remember Messy tried to be my mother, but all she did was make me feel suffocated.  She told me that she never connected with anyone until she held